ezdoesit

This FYI and it's about time.
This is for the State of NJ just signed today.


Tougher driver cellphone rules signed into law


(07/19/12)TRENTON - It's now easier forNew Jersey prosecutors to obtain convictions on vehicular homicide or assault by auto charges when drivers kill or injure someone while using a cellphone.

The measure was signed into law yesterday by Acting Gov. Kim Guadagno, just weeks after it was passed in the state Legislature.

The law classifies the illegal use of a hand-held cellphone as driving recklessly, one of the factors needed in finding a person guilty of vehicular homicide or assault by auto.

Proponents had argued the measure was needed because it was difficult to hold drivers criminally accountable when they kill or injure someone while using a cellphone.

KonAaron Snake 

Fantastic! I just hope PA adopts it next...

rumrunn6

nice but not likely to save lives.

reminds me of child "safety" procedures in towns where they video tape and photograph your child and record birth marks. all that does it make it easier to identify their body if found. zero for protection.

it is what it is. lets not make it out to be more than what it is.

KonAaron Snake 

I disagree...drunk driving dipped because of the penalties. This is a real step forward.

AdamDZ

We need laws that would actually force the police to investigate crashes properly and punish cops severely for botched investigations. Otherwise all these laws are pretty much useless.

KonAaron Snake 

That seems a little extreme to me Adam. You never get everything you want...resources are scarce. This strikes me as a legitimate move forwards and I would not qualify it as useless.

indyfabz

Acting Governor? Did something happen to Christie?

Cyclebum

Use of hand held cp's while driving should have the same consequences as DUI. As with DUI, enforcement is always a problem. But unlike alcohol, cp records are not metabolized, so correlating yack time with hit time is usually not hard to do.

I wonder if the NJ law applies to hands free cp use?

chasm54

This has nothing specifically to do with touring. It's a subject for A&S.

DeadheadSF

blah... California has a cell phone law that has done absolutely nothing to keep people off their damn phones. It's just being used occasionally as yet another way to forcibly extract money from citizens, but it's done nothing to keep people paying attention to the road.

PedalingFool

New Jersey is a nanny state... If you like having big government and lots of laws then that's the state to be living in.

How many lives will be saved with the "Texting While Walking" ban?

They don't really give a crap about you... they just want your money.

KonAaron Snake 

That gosh darn big government...we don't need no stinking laws asking people not to drive a 2000 pound death machine while distracted. They can take their roads, bridges and federal disaster relief money and go pound!

DeadheadSF

The whole country is a nanny state. As George Carlin said, it's just another case of one group of people trying to control another group of people.

The end result is rarely positive change.

DeadheadSF

They took and pounded something after Katrina with all that money... and it looks like someone's taking and pounding it in California now too as the roads get steadily worse. Where's all that money going? Not into the infrastructure, that's for sure.

leob1

This law is to punish those that cause deaths after the fact, it will do little to prevent them. Until the handheld laws are enforced not much will change.
Christie is stumping for the GOP, he's still the FMIC(Fat Man In Charge).

chefisaac

agreed! lol

The drivers out here are freaking crazy and there is not enough cops. When I lived in Washington State, there were tons but when I moved to NJ last year, I drove for three months without seeing a cop.

KonAaron Snake 

It's all a scam I tell you! Any waste invalidates the entire institution!

achoo

Nobody's a bigger libertarian than I am, but damn it's downright dangerous to drive and use a cell phone at the same time.

So yeah, while I don't like government intrusion, IMO this one is way overdue.

achoo

What wrong with that? That's pretty much how laws work - you get punished AFTER you break them.

Bikealou

Notice the law refers to killing or maiming someone. We need a stinkin' law to prosecute someone who has killed or maimed someone??? Yeah, cell phones and driving mix about as well as drinking and driving but come on, you kill some one and the state needs a special law to prosecute?! What am I missing?

rekmeyata

Great law, I'm sure it will be one that all motorists observe...are we in la la land yet?

Chris516

I apologize for being a skeptic. But, When it comes to cyclists' and pedestrians being at bottom of the 'pecking order'(or lower down on the totem pole), they will never be given justice 'on scene'. Yet, They pay the most.

rekmeyata

What? We the cyclists pay the most? Oh my gawd here we go again.

SlowNeasy

Chris515.
Long ago in South Fla, I heard a call go out on the Police radio." Moterist stoped at red light,is reporting that a man on a bicycle for no reason took out his tire pump and proceeded to break out all of said moterist's headlights and windows in the vehicle. Bicycle last seen ect ect"
Now I was a bicyclist at the time and tho I couldn't condone what the biker had done, I sure as heck could understand it. It made my day. Never located the biker though. Made my day.
How's that for a little 'Justice'?.
Dave.

rekmeyata

Great form of justice, except for one small problem, what if the motorist took out a gun and proceeded in shooting the cyclist to death? The motorist would just claim he/she feared for their lives and the guy on the bike was going crazy so they shot the cyclist to protect property and body.

If the motorist had done that I can bet you a lot of posters here would be screaming revenge on the motorist even though it was the cyclist going berserk.

So no, I can't recommend a cyclist doing that to a car. If you have the time to smash out lights and windows then you have the time to take a license plate number and call the cops to register your complaint about the motorist's behavior.